Providing a much-needed check on mythopoeic archaeological inference, but also on occasion commenting on the important discoveries of the day. Every effort is made to keep the invective to a dull roar. Best plug your ears!

For an up-close look at the film franchise, the Discovery Science Center in Orange County, California is now featuring an exhibit called “Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archeology,” on display through April 21, 2013 featuring original and instantly recognizable props, costumes, and artwork.

The reporter, Jeremiah Daws, thinks it's totally neat that

The information that is given is a nice balance between how the films were made and the basis for the archeology in the film, such as the truth behind the Ark of the Covenant.

This must be what Stephen Colbert calls truthiness. We must be thankful for small mercies. And for this.

the exhibit also introduces the history of real archeology, featuring actual relics and pictures of the men that the Indiana Jones character was based on.

And who are these giants of "real archaeology?" I know I should recognize this guy...

The one in the picture, I mean. Not the geekazoid reading a fake real archaeology text booky thing. I guess there's a silver lining to this conflation of reality and altered states of reality. At least there are no dinosaurs! Because of that, I think I'll wait for the Avatar exhibition.

Binford's probably rolling around in his grave.

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NO worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.Comforter, where, where is your comforting?Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chiefWoe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling-ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fallFrightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheapMay who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our smallDurance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: allLife death does end and each day dies with sleep.

About the author

My primary research interest is and always has been advancing knowledge of how hominids became human. Modern humans exploded out of Africa between about 40 and 50 kyr ago, and there is abundant evidence of recognizably human behaviour from at least that time in Africa, and across Europe, Asia and Australia. Signature modern human behaviour has not been documented unequivocally for the Neanderthals and their contemporaries, the skeletally modern members of the genus Homo (e.g. at Skhul Cave). Instead of recognizably modern implements and other hallmarks of modern human behaviour, in the Middle Palaeolithic we see lithic technology organized around flakes, obtained through bifacial reduction, some platform preparation, and retouch; no unequivocal use of bone other than as an analogue for stone; no evidence of space use that could be recognized as human; no unequivocal evidence of purposeful burial, no unequivocal representational imagery. Achievements include a BA in Archaeology (Simon Fraser University, 1987), “Grave Shortcomings: The Evidence for Neandertal Burial” (Current Anthropology, 1989), a Ph.D. in Anthropology (University of California at Berkeley, 1994), a lectureship in Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England, NSW, Australia, from 1996 to 1999, “Middle Palaeolithic Burial is Not a Dead Issue: The View from Qafzeh, Saint-Césaire, Kebara, Amud, and Dederiyeh” (Journal of Human Evolution, 1999), and, in aggregate, 27 months of field experience in southern central British Columbia (Salishan), Israel (Middle Palaeolithic), France (Mesolithic), Australia, California’s Coast Range, its Central Valley and Great Basin desert regions.

The Subversive Archaeologist, Blogging Since October 5, 2011. Powered by Blogger.